In our study on the Holy Spirit we are presently looking at the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given to us for the profit of all. So lets begin reading in Romans chapter 12, starting in verse 3. We read "For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality..." Romans 12:3-8b.
The gift of giving is the supernatural ability given to a person by the Holy Spirit to give of himself, his resources, his talents to aid others. We are all called to give, but this is taken to a higher level. Now I have to admit, this is one of those topics I dislike to talk about. Maybe the reason is that I have seen the pressure put on people to give, and the abuse that is spawned from that. Here a Calvary we are easy going when it comes to giving. There is no pressure, no pledges, whatever God places upon your heart, you can give. It is as simple as that.
When you think about it, giving goes against the very nature of man. We are very selfish when it comes to giving by nature. On the other hand, God is very giving. We read in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Thus, by His own nature, God is giving, man is not!
In Jeremiah 13:23 we read "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil." The answer is obvious. No an Ethiopian can’t change the color of his skin. Nor can a leopard change the color of his spots. Thus, we, by our very nature, can’t do good unless we are born again in Christ. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 6:11, "And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." And in II Corinthians 5:17 we read, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." And so God can change us, and He does, even though at times that old nature rears its ugly head!
Before we get into what giving is, I want to take some time to share with you what giving is not. In the church today we see this kind of mentality growing, as it is being taught over and over again, that giving is like investing. God has a great return on our investment. Now the principle is true, they have just perverted it and we see their perversion has led to greed and the wrong motivation in their giving.
Paul tells Timothy about those "...who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself." I Timothy 6:5. You see, Paul is speaking of the wrong motivation behind the giving. James is a little more blunt when he says "You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures." James 4:2-3. Again the thought is wheeling and dealing with God to make a profit, to spend it on our own fleshly pleasures. That is a wrong attitude for giving.
Frederick K. C. Price said in regards to us thinking that Jesus was poor, that he is trying "to get you out of this malaise of thinking that Jesus and the disciples were poor...The Bible says that he has left us an example that we should follow his steps. That’s the reason why I drive a Rolls Royce. I’m following Jesus’ steps." And yet Jesus said in Matthew 8:20, "...‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’"
I think the ex-wife of televangelist Richard Roberts summed up what is going on very well. Patti Roberts said: "I know a lot of people were blessed and sincerely ministered to by what we sang on TV, and by what we said - but the overall picture, I’m afraid, seemed to say, ‘If you follow our formula, you’ll be like us,’ rather than, ‘If you do what Jesus says, you’ll be like Him.’ It was certainly more exciting to follow us, because to follow us was to identify with success, with glamor, with a theology that made everything good and clean and well-knit together. To identify with Jesus, however, meant to identify with the cross."
As I have said, the prosperity teaching does have some truth to it, but they have taken a Biblical principle and grossly perverted it. Just as gravity is a physical law, so is the law of giving a spiritual law. Jesus put it this way in Luke 6:38 when He said, "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you." God wants to bless you but if you give to get, if you give with strings attached, if you are looking to get rich off of God, that is the wrong motivation and we call that kind of an attitude, GREED! The reason we give is to build up the body of Christ, to help those in need, and in the end we do get blessed more than we can imagine, but that is not the reason we give. You see, God will bless you because God will be a debtor to no man!
In Haggai chapter 1 the Lord is coming against those who were more interested in self than God in their giving. The context here in Haggai is the Jews had returned home from their captivity in Babylon. The land was a mess, the walls broken down and the temple a big rock heap.
Out of the 2 to 3 million that went into captivity in Babylon, only just under 50,000 returned home, the rest had become comfortable in captivity. And so for this small group of people, the work was overwhelming. And as they returned home and began the clean up, the repair, the removal of the stones off the temple mount, by the end of the day, it looked like they did nothing, they had made no progress. And after a period of time they became discouraged, disheartened, and they gave up building the Lord’s house, and began to build homes for themselves.
They not only built houses for themselves, but they began to fix them up, make them look nice, while the temple or the house of God remained in ruin. And because they had placed their own desires above God, judgment had come upon them. They had used their own resources to build up their kingdom instead of God’s.
And so in Haggai chapter 1, beginning in verse 2 we read "Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying: ‘This people says, "The time has not come, the time that the LORD'S house should be built." Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, saying, ‘Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?’ Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways! You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, Earns wages to put into a bag with holes.’ Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘Consider your ways! Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified,’ says the LORD. ‘You looked for much, but indeed it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘Because of My house that is in ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house. Therefore the heavens above you withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its fruit. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.’" Haggai 1:2-11.
It is not something we like to think about, but God speaks very clearly here on how He feels about giving. In fact, when we do things like that, putting God behind our own needs, keeping from God, we end up losing. Proverbs 11:24-25 says "There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself." In other words, the person who gives to others, spreads out his wealth or resources, will see them increase. On the other hand, the person who holds onto their things will never have enough.
Listen to the way the Lord put it in Malachi 3:8-10. We read, "‘Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.’"
Imagine, when we hold back on giving to God, He says we are "robbing" Him. Not only that, but we do miss out on the blessings that He desires to pour out upon us. You can’t give to God and not be blessed. He wants to open up the windows of heaven and pour out his blessings that will be exceedingly abundantly above all we could ever imagine! As Jesus said in Matthew 10:8, "...Freely you have received, freely give."
Now we can see people today, and even ourselves, gravitate to either of these extremes. At times we give to God to get something in return. At other times we hold back from giving to God because we feel that we can’t afford it. The reality is, you can’t afford not to give to God. Other times we are more interested in building up our kingdom here on earth. What I would like to do is spend some time looking at the Scriptures to see how we are to give, the motivation that led’s to the action of giving.
HOW ARE WE TO GIVE?
1. GIVE CHEERFULLY - II CORINTHIANS 9:6-7
First of all Paul uses an agricultural principle to make his point. If you sow lets say corn seeds very sparingly, when it comes time to harvest the corn, you will have very little in return. But if you sow bountifully, when harvest times comes, you will reap bountifully also. I do understand many are afraid to even speak of that principle because of all the abuse, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water. God has said it in His Word, and lets not be afraid of it.
Paul goes on to say that when we give we need to be cheerful about it, for God loves it when we give out of that kind of heart. He does not love it when we give out of compulsion, when we are forced to do so and we do it grudgingly, but when we do it out of a heart of love. In fact the word "cheerful" in the Greek is HILAROS, from which we get our English word "hilarious" from. In other words, God loves a hilarious giver! That is how we should give to Him.
2. GIVE FREELY - PSALM 54:6
God wants us to give to Him freely, with no strings attached. It is out of that heart attitude, that motivation, that we are blessed! I truly believe that tithing is an Old Testament principle. In fact, when you add up all they were to give in the Old Testament, it came to around 23% per year in tithes. We are living in the age of grace, and in the age of grace the standard does not go down, but it goes up. Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-28, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." We are called bondslaves of Christ, and thus we willingly have given to Him everything, our Master, as we are under His authority. Thus, it is all His! So when you give to God, you are giving out of a cheerful heart, or don’t give at all!
3. GIVE OUT OF LOVE - I CORINTHIANS 13:3
There are many people that give but do so with the wrong attitude. In fact they become angry, resentful, bitter at times, looking down upon those who are less fortunate. God wants us to give out of love and if you can’t, then don’t give, because it is worthless in the eyes of God.
4. GIVE WITHOUT DRAWING ATTENTION TO YOURSELF - MATTHEW 6:1-4
That is the proper attitude to have when you give, not drawing attention to yourself, because when you do, you are taking it away from God. That is why we don’t have plaques of what people have donated to the church, we don’t want to rob them of their rewards by giving them the glory, the attention and praise now.
5. GIVE WITH SIMPLICITY - ROMANS 12:8b
When Paul says that we are to give with liberality, that word can be translated "simplicity". Again, the thought is with no strings attached, no conditions. God accepts giving with no strings attached. And so the thought here is when we give we should do so generously and with simplicity.
In Psalm 50:10-12 we read "For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness." In other words, it is all the Lords and what the Lord does is He allows us to give back to Him that which He has given to us, so we can assist in the work of God, the building up of His kingdom by giving of ourselves to His people. And what a blessing it is do be able to help others in our giving.
Probably all of us understand that principle, but when it comes to application, it is a little more difficult. It is like the farmer who came running in to his wife, all excited and said "Honey, I have great news. Our cow bore twin calves today!" And as he jumped around and hugged his wife over this news, he said to her, "Honey, the Lord has truly blessed us this day. I am going to give one of these calves to the Lord!" And she said "Which one?" "It doesn’t mater", was his reply.
A few months later the farmer came home very sad and his wife asked him "Honey, what’s wrong?" He said, "I’ve got some bad news. The Lord’s calf died!" We tend to give to God second best, but we should give out of our best, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He deserves nothing less. So give to Him generously and with simplicity!
6. GIVE WILLINGLY - EXODUS 25:2
You see, there was no pressure for them to give. No one was coming to their door with a pledge sheet. They didn’t get envelopes in the mail telling them to give. Moses was to tell the children of Israel about giving, and then only those who gave from a willing heart would be received. There are churches around town that have passed the collection plate around several times because they did not get enough money the first time it went around. How sad, and how wrong. People aren’t giving willingly, but they just want the plate to stop going around, so they will do anything it takes to get passed this.
What is the result when there is no pressure to give? In Exodus chapter 36 we see the result of what happens when people give willingly. We read beginning in verse 4 "Then all the craftsmen who were doing all the work of the sanctuary came, each from the work he was doing, and they spoke to Moses, saying, ‘The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work which the LORD commanded us to do.’ So Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, ‘Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.’ And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done-- indeed too much." Exodus 36:4-7.
Imagine that, Moses had to tell the people to stop bringing in their offerings, they had more than enough for the work of building the tabernacle. And so the people had to be restrained from bringing any more. Imagine that kind of a problem!
7. GIVE HONESTLY - ACTS 5:1-11
The problem with Ananias and Sapphira was not that they didn’t give all they had to God, but they lied to God about what they gave to make themselves look good before the people and the apostles. God wants us to give honestly to Him, to be faithful about what we are giving to Him because you can’t hide anything from Him. Everything is open and naked before the Lord.
Thus, we are to give cheerfully, freely, out of love, without drawing attention to ourselves, with simplicity, willingly and honestly to God. As you look at your life, see if these things match up. If they don’t, ask God to help you in these areas. As you support certain ministries, see if you can find these things within their ministry, and if not, maybe you better not support them.
Now when we are told to give to God, the first thing we think of, and maybe the only thing we think of is MONEY, MONEY AND MORE MONEY! We are going to take a few minutes to look at this issue a little closer so we can see what the Scriptures have to say in regards to what God wants us to give, and you might be surprised.
WHAT TO GIVE?
1. GIVE YOURSELF - II CORINTHIANS 8:1-6
Paul is commending the believers in Macedonia for their generosity in giving. These believers were going through very difficult times, they heard what was going on with the believers in Jerusalem, the hardships they were having, and they were willing to help out at all cost their brethren in Christ. In fact Paul says they went overboard in their giving, but not because they felt they had to, but they willingly gave of themselves to help others, even beyond their own means!
G. Campbell Morgan said, "Contributions to the work of the Lord are only valuable as they are the gifts of those who are themselves yielded to God." You see, as we surrender ourselves to God, walking in the Spirit, we will be willing to give of ourselves to help others in need, whatever that might be.
Thus, as we give of ourselves we give of our time, our talents, our gifts, and yes, even of our money to help those in need. A great example of a person who gave himself to the service of God was Epaphroditus. Paul, in Philippians 2:25-30 said, "Yet I considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need; since he was longing for you all, and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick almost unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I sent him the more eagerly, that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I may be less sorrowful. Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem; because for the work of Christ he came close to death, not regarding his life, to supply what was lacking in your service toward me." You see, he was God centered, and others centered!
When you think of giving, don’t limit it to money. Give of yourself for the work of God. And truly, as I look at this body of believers, I see people who give themselves over to assist in the work of God, to minister to others in need, to function as a healthy body of believers.
If you are struggling in this area, which can be a turn-off because of all the abuse that is seen in many churches and Christian organizations, let me help you to get a correct perspective on this issue. In Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 19 we read "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21.
Instead of having an earthly perspective, building up our kingdom here on earth, a kind of "The one who dies with the most toys wins!" mentality, be heavenly minded. Keep a heavenly perspective, desiring to give of yourself to people the things of God, ministering to them on a spiritual level, and at times even a physical level, providing food, clothing, and shelter for them, and you will be blessed. Proverbs 19:17 says "He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD, and He will pay back what he has given."
And the truth of the matter is you can tell where a persons heart is at, what he loves, what is his passion, by what he does, how he gives. If you lay for yourself treasures in heaven, it will be eternal and the focus will be others instead of self. If you build up your kingdom here on earth, amassing as much possessions as you can; moth, rust and thieves will eventually take it all away. Where is your heart?
Again, as Jesus said, "...Freely you have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8. When we give to God out of our own resources we are only giving back that which is already His. And as we give out of a right heart, God does bless us abundantly!
As I have said, talking about money, giving makes me uncomfortable, but I will teach on it as we come across it in the Scriptures because God has felt it is that important to place it in His Word. But I don’t want to pressure anyone into giving or make anyone feel like they have to give. That is between you and God! You give out of a cheerful heart and see the blessings that God will rain down upon you!
Let me leave you with these words from Paul the apostle in II Corinthians 9:8-15. He said, "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written: ‘He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.’ Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. For the administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God, while, through the proof of this ministry, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal sharing with them and all men, and by their prayer for you, who long for you because of the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" The gift of giving, what a blessing it is in the body of Christ!